


Communication

by alwayssomethingelse



Category: Holby City
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Ficlet, Fluff, awkward older lesbians, mother/son conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 01:06:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8230943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayssomethingelse/pseuds/alwayssomethingelse
Summary: A phonecall.A few choice comments.An unexpected visit.An email.A phonecall.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spilled_notes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_notes/gifts), [Aubry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aubry/gifts), [GirlonaBridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlonaBridge/gifts), [featherxquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherxquill/gifts).



> Fluffy headcanon that may well be proved entirely wrong by the next few weeks worth of episodes.  
> Gifted to my fellow Sapphic Angst Fest support group ladies.

The burr of the phone reverberates in her ear. _Pick up_. Come on. 

"Hello mum"

She tries to read his voice. Work out what...how...to say it.

"Cameron. Hi. Um... How are you?"

"Fine." He's guarded. That's fair. They've hardly been in contact since his stint in AAU. These things take time. "You?"

"Fine." She bites her lip. "Well. Um." Nothing for it. "I've accepted a secondment. In Ukraine."

"How long?" He doesn't even seem surprised.

"A few months." 

"What about Serena?"

"What about her?" She forces the words out, imitating a lack of concern as best she can. On the other end of the line, Bernie hears Cameron sigh.

" _Fine_. Your call." He sounds...disappointed?

"Well. I thought I should let you know. I mean. Just in case." In case of what? She doesn't think anything is going to happen. It's less dangerous than active duty, at any rate. In case he was going to get in contact with her? That seems unlikely, all things considered. "I mean, you can always get me by email, anyway." 

"Right." 

It's a flat way to leave things, but she can't think of anything else to say. "I should...go. Packing and so on. You take care." 

"You too." Is that a shred of warmth she can hear, or just willful imagination? A ghost of laughter, then "Don't get in the way of any Russian missiles." 

"Do my best. Well. Bye." She hears the click on the line, and lowers the phone, tapping the smooth screen meditatively against her lips. "Love you." 

***

"Auntie Serena, where's Doctor Bernie?" 

Serena jumps enough to knock her half cold coffee over. 

"Jason! How long were you there?" She grabs some hankies and tries to sop up the mess. 

"Only a few minutes. You looked busy. But where _is_ she?"

"What? Oh. Bernie. She's... She's in Kiev." She avoids his eyes, tries to ignore the way her voice _will_ shake. 

"Kiev? What's she doing there?"

"Opening a new trauma unit."

"Like the one here?"

"Sort of."

"Oh. So she won't be back for next week's fish supper then?"

" _What?_ No. Why?"

"I just thought she could have her dinner with us. I asked her you see, about who she had dinner with, and she said that asides from you, she didn't have dinner with anyone. So I thought she could eat with us." 

Serena's breath catches in her chest. Sometimes his honesty is just so disarming that even now it still catches her unexpectedly. "That's...that's very thoughtful of you Jason. But I don't know...I mean, well, she's not here, so it's not really... I mean. Never mind. Thank you for thinking of it, though." She's got most of the coffee cleared up, but there's a report that will never be quite the same again. And she has no more coffee. Grabbing her purse, she makes for the door. Jason turns to follow. 

"Do you miss Doctor Bernie?"

"I, ah, um. Well yes of course." She can feel her cheeks echoing her flame shirt, and Serena ducks her head as she scoots past Raf. "Going for coffee, back in a mo." 

Jason is still following her. "I miss her. I wanted her to come round to ours some night. She's really nice. You should tell her when she comes back to have dinner with us every week." 

"I...I don't know. I mean. She might be busy. You can't just demand people come for dinner you know."

"But she'd come for you." His voice is so innocent, so certain.

"I..." The catch in her throat is too much. "I have to go Jason. I'll see you at five, okay?" Serena ducks through the nearest door, only to realise she's in the sluice room. Mercifully, it's empty. She leans back against the door, eyes closing to blink away tears that are never far away.

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_." 

***

"Someone to see you Serena." Raf sticks his head into the office, before retracting it and pushing the door open, revealing a familiar looking slender dark haired lad.

"Ah, hello, um... Oh! It's...Cameron, isn't it?" 

"Good morning Ms Campbell." It's a wary but polite greeting. "Yes, It's Cameron." 

What the hell is Bernie Wolfe's son doing in her office? Serena pulls her lips into a smile and shakes the proffered hand. "Sit down, do. What can I do for you?" She watches him take a seat with the same fluidity of movement his mother has, and shakes her head, a short sharp jerk, to try and remove the thoughts, the images that will persist in jarring her every occupation.

"Well. I, um. I don't know if mum told you that I used to be a med student?" He eyes her with that same mixture of hesitancy and confidence that Bernie uses.

"Yes... I was aware of that."

"Maybe... Maybe it was the crash, maybe it was something mum said... Maybe I've just grown up a bit. But. Anyway. I reapplied. And they've accepted me back in."

"Have you told your mum?"

"...No..."

"...I'm sure she'll be delighted."

"Maybe. I don't know if I could do anything that would delight her. But I...I don't want to bother her while she's away."

"Oh."

He pauses, then eyes her, hands fidgeting. "Have you...heard from her?"

"No." Serena tries not snap, tries not to sound bitter. It's not easy.

"Oh."

"You?"

"No."

"Oh. Well. Probably she's very busy. You know, with memories of getting our trauma unit set up, and obviously they have very different conditions out there."

"Yeah." He doesn't sound convinced. "Well. I had to put in an application for my next rotation. And I wanted you to know...I put Holby AAU as my first choice."

"Really? Why, may I ask?" 

"Because I want to specialise in Trauma. I realised some time ago, but then...it became such a bad topic with Dad, and I...Mum, and I...I mean..." 

"I understand." _Completely_. "So you want to try your fist at it while she's out of the picture, and not breathing down your neck, is that it?" 

He looks a bit stumped at such a blunt way of putting it. "Um. Yes."

"You realise you'll have me breathing down your neck instead? I may not be an army major, but I can be quite the dragon." 

"I'm sure...ma'am." 

"Ms Campbell will do just fine." She can't say it without the corners of her mouth twitching, though, and Cameron's shoulders, held so tensely, relax an inch. "Well, Dr Wo...Dunn, as I'm sure you know, the decision isn't mine per se..."

"...but you _do_ have ultimate refusal..." His concern is evident. 

"...yes, you're quite right. And providing your name comes across my desk, I shan't be exercising it." She turns her hands back to the review she's been filling in.

"Thank you." He sounds relieved, but not completely so, and continues to sit long after the moment in which Serena would have expected him to excuse himself if that were all.

"Yes...?" She looks back over at him, sitting in his mother's seat with none of her ease.

"I, um. Well."

"Get on with it Dr Dunn. If you're going to work in Trauma you need to learn expedient communication." Serena maintains her slight smile, though, lest he thinks she's regretting her decision already.

He is silent for a moment, face muscles working in a way that intimately connects him to Bernie. "You know she loves you, right?"

"I..." _Not_ what she was expecting. "I... She... You, I mean..." Serena stammers, out of countenance. "I hardly think that’s an appropriate conversation for us to be having..." She bites back the 'young man' that's on her tongue. 

"Maybe." His bullish tone is painfully familiar. "But she's not going to admit it, and I recognise the signs. And..."

"Yes?"

Now it's his turn to falter. "...and I want to see her happy. She never was with Dad, you know? I didn't realise until... And then I was so angry because it wasn't what I wanted. But when I saw her look at you... I knew. And much as she's been a pretty lousy mother in some ways...she's still my mum. And..."

Serena takes a deep breath. And another. " _Well_. I wish I had your confidence."

"...she buries things does mum. She wouldn't tell the left hand what the right was doing, let alone feeling. You'll have to tell her."

"And what makes you assume that, even if she does feel that way, that _I_ feel the same?" She can feel the blushes belying her. 

"I... It was something she said."

"Bernie spoke to you about me? _When_?"

Cameron shakes his head. "It was when she phoned to tell me about the secondment - I asked her what you thought... And it was just the way she responded. Not… _what_...she said, but how. I know her, remember. I know how she hides things, even from herself. And I think..."

Serena raises an eyebrow.

"...I think love scares her, and she runs away from things that scare her. Odd really, given how brave she is." 

Serena watches this child - because he's not much more than that really - intrigued. Bernie would be bemused to discover how well he knows her. "Well, this is all very interesting from an academic point of view, but seeing as we've _neither_ of us heard from her, I think..."

"If you want to hear from her, you'll have to contact her first. That's just how she is."

"Dr Wol...Dunn, do you intend to interrupt me when you start your placement? No? Well then, if I were you, I would start practising that skill now." 

Cameron's mouth clamps shut. 

"...I think, that in the interests of appropriateness, we had better pretend this conversation hasn't happened. Thank you for your concern." She smiles at him, combining a mix of her patented motherly benignity with a firm dismissal. "I have no doubt I'll be seeing you soon. Congratulations with restarting your studies, by the way."

He stands up, taking the hint. "Thank you Ms Campbell, and..." 

Serena shoots him a warning look. 

"...and I look forward to working with you."

"That's the ticket." She gets up to hold the door. "You know your way out, don't you? Bye!" Closes the door on his retreating form and stares at the ceiling in disbelief.

***

> ~~Dear Bernie...~~  
>  ~~Hi Bernie...~~  
>  Dear Bernie,
> 
> How's things, the Ukraine? Learn any interesting new swear words yet? Many interesting cases? ~~Are you ok?~~
> 
> Fletch is improving. Odd hiccups but nothing he can't handle. 
> 
> ~~I miss you.~~  
>  ~~AAU's not the same without you.~~ ~~We miss you.~~ Everyone is asking after you.
> 
> Hell of a lot of politics going on. Sure you're glad to be missing that. ~~Could use your forthrightness sometimes.~~
> 
> ~~Take care…~~  
>  ~~look after yourself…~~  
>  Take care.  
>  Best ~~wishes~~  
>  S

***

Serena is elbow deep in reports when the phone rings, an outside line.

"Hello, Serena Campbell speaking?" 

"Hello you." The echo of distance and the lowness of her tone can't disguise Bernie's voice.

"Bernie! I... How are you? I... I’m..." 

"...I miss you."

"...I'm sorry I was an ass...” The words only filter in when Serena is half way through speaking. “What?” She breathes in, shaky. "I miss you too..." 

“…I’m sorry I’m such a coward…” 

“…no, no it’s me…”

“…but I…”

They start to giggle at the same time. Thank God the door is shut.

Finally, through gasps, Serena controls herself enough to ask, “How is it?”

“It’s…” Bernie pauses, for the longest time, and Serena’s already casting around for what she can have said wrong. “It’s…interesting. Challenging.” On her end of the line, a claxon sounds. “ _Very_ challenging. I… I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go. That’s…”

“I understand. Thanks for ca…” Serena hears the click. “…calling.” Taps the receiver against her lips, as a slow smile starts to form all of its own accord. “ _Love you._ ”


End file.
